Westminster shelves soccer season

Westminster Christian High School has been forced to cancel its 2011 girls soccer season due to an uncertainty if a full team could be consistently put on the field.

“We didn’t have enough girls. We’re really disappointed,” said Westminster Christian athletic director Rick Palmer. “We had 11 commit full-time and there were some girls that could only make it part-time because of other things like science Olympiad, vacations and weddings. We’ve been trying to get this together since March 1. I didn’t feel comfortable with it and neither did (Westminster coach) Mike (Richardson). We decided to shelve the season. We didn’t want to scrounge for people to play on game days. I can’t really pinpoint why this happened.”

Palmer, who added the 2010 team faced numbers problems and had to play some contests down multiple players, notified all of the opponents on the Warriors’ schedule of the decision and noted the schools as a whole were very understanding.

The girls’ soccer program has been in place since the inception of the high school, according to Palmer.

“We’ve got three seniors on the team that are very disappointed,” he said.

But Palmer stressed the plan is to restart the program for the 2012 season.

“We will definitely move forward with a scheduled season next year,” he said. “It will definitely be on next year. We’ll have eight returning kids next year and there are eighth-grade girls coming in who are interested in playing. We’ll be back.”

Westminster Christian plays in the Northeastern Athletic Conference. The conference fields 6 teams in girls soccer. The Warriors finished 9-6-4 in 2010 under Richardson’s leadership.